devmorgan.com

Laughter Everywhere.

Some people may be satisfied with the yearly Google prank, but not us. The idea to pull off some kind of April Fools joke was discussed as far back as December. Of course, we didn’t plan much, but I think it has turned out great… so… here is how it all went down:

Coming up with names for as many professors as possible was really hard. We should have thought about it more then we did, but with three of us, we came up with about 90% of the target names. Professors we had no experience with were generally left out because we didn’t know much about them, or what they would find ‘funny’. Names ranged all over the place, from simple nicknames and titles like “Resident Hippie | Weez” to “Minivan Driver | Humpty Dumpty”. Overall, the names took about 3 hours to come up with, but I think it was worth it.

The next step was putting the signs up. Mike, Zack and I walked around the floor and started putting the signs up. We only ended up having to reprint 2 signs due to typos… that we noticed. Putting the signs up was actually a lot of fun because we started to really see the scope of what we were doing.

We finished about 1:30am, and headed home. Overall the entire process for the night took a little over 4 hours. Not to bad considering. The only downside was that we don’t usually come in until much later in the day, so for now the plan was for me to wake up early and come see the reactions…

I walked in to building 70 at about 9:15am. I headed up the stairs and started walking towards the grad lab- I mean the “I CAN HAZ TUTORING” room. I got about halfway down the hall, then I heard a voice saying “Yeah, they’ve all changed”. Immediately a smile came. It was going to be a success, I could just tell from the sound in the voice. I started walking around, and I would run in to the occasional professor walking around the halls looking at all the signs. All smiling. Giggles here and there.

Some of the professors immediately could tell I was partially behind it, I mean, why else would I be in 70 before noon… carrying a camera and snickering? I walked back to my lab, waiting patiently for Deb to see her new sign. A few seconds later, I hear her laugh from around the corner. Got her! I walk down the hall to see her facial reaction. She knew it was me right away. I look down the hall and I start to see something I didn’t expect… people taking pictures. First I saw Dr. Kang taking a picture of his sign, then I saw a student walking down taking pictures as well.

What a great success!

Even as I write this blog entry, I can hear laughter as people walk by. Every now and then a good chuckle. The best part, is laughter lifts the spirits. I am happy to be here today, and everyone that is doing their walk around the building is smiling and giggling. I wonder how long everyone will keep their signs up? :).

Thanks to Zack Panitzke and Mike Galey for helping make this prank possible. You guys rock.

P.S. To any professors that might read this, Mike is up for a GA position next year — you should support him!

dave education, life, rambling